Losing Romeo (15 page)

Tyler—Jailbird

My
first night in juvenile hall and I'm just trying to keep to myself. I'm not interested in meeting people or telling nosy people my business. In and out that's all I'm about. But I'm quickly learning that old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. After court, I was processed (which took forever) and shoved into a room with three other girls. The moment I walked in the room, these project hoes were looking me up and down like I owed them money or something.

I should've known that when a group of girls are together there are going to be problems. And I just walked into a wasps' nest, because the girl in my top bunk bed is Billie Grant's cousin, Laquisha.

Small world.

For the first couple of hours, Laquisha smiled at me like she thought Christmas had come early. I guess in a way it had for her. Instead of just making her move so we could get some furniture moving around here, Laquisha played her
cards close to her chest while she snickered and eyeballed me to death. But soon as the sun started to set and the facility started to thin, I knew trouble was brewing.

Now here I am lying in bed with my eyes wide open, waiting. For what, I'm not sure, but I know that it's coming. Soon.

Another hour passes.

Then another hour.

My eyelids grow heavy. After all, it's been a long day. A lot has happened, and I didn't get that much sleep last night. I fight it as long as I can, but finally lose the war and fall asleep.

A minute later I'm awakened when some bitch wraps a hand around my mouth and hisses in my ear, “We got you, bitch!”

In the next nanosecond, Laquisha starts pounding away on my ribs. I try to swing, only to discover to my horror that they've managed to pin my arms to my sides by tucking the top sheet so tight I'm paralyzed for a full twenty seconds. Ordinarily that's not a long time, but when you're getting your butt kicked it feels like a lifetime. When I finally do get loose, it's on and poppin'. I knock Laquisha's two-hundred-pound ass off me for a few seconds and then get in a few licks with her two skinny friends. For a minute, I'm holding my own—but reality comes back into play, and it's still three against one. Without Kierra and Anjenai as my usual backup, for the first time in my life I actually lose a fight.

It's going to be a long six months.

Kwan—Falling

Tonight
is the night of my big date with Anjenai, and I have to admit I'm actually looking forward to it. I stay up all night spitting rhymes and experimenting with different beats for tonight's open-mike battle at Club Zero. I'm more concerned about impressing Anjenai than I am about winning the contest. The minute I stroll through the school doors, I'm rubbernecking the hallways, hoping to catch a glimpse of Anjenai. She has already given me her number and address so I know where I'm going to pick her up, but I want to catch up with her and make sure that everything is still a go.

While my gaze is wandering, my ear picks up Anjenai's name on the lips of a few girls.

“Giiirrrl! I didn't hardly recognize Anjenai this morning. The hair and makeup—”

“What about her clothes?” the girl's friend says.

“I know. Right? I wonder who she's trying to impress?”

With my curiosity piqued I start to ask the girls where they saw Anjenai when suddenly one of them says, “Oh. There she goes!”

I damn near break my neck trying to turn around. Almost instantly, my gaze crashes into Anjenai and, in turn, my eyes nearly bug out of my head. After that my heart starts pounding hard inside my chest, and after a few more seconds, I have to remind myself to breathe.

From the top, Anjenai's shoulder-length micro braids were gone. Her thick hair is now flat-ironed straight and highlighted with blond streaks. Her face—her beautiful, glowing face—looks as if it is ready for the pages of one of those glossy magazines girls always seem to have their faces shoved into. Eyes poppin', cheeks glowing and her lips—those beautiful strawberry-tinted lips have this brother caught up. In her ears are two silver hoops, around her neck a single silver chain.

Her blouse is this soft lavender number that cuts across her top in a way that for the first time brings attention to a nice cleavage. I ain't going to lie, my gaze sticks there for a minute before it travels on down her slim waist and then to the nice, thick curves that are in a pair of jeans that look as if they were painted on.
Oh, my God!

I blink a couple of more times to make sure that I'm not dreaming. When it's clear that I'm not, I quickly do a drool check and head straight toward Anjenai with a smile stretched from ear to ear. When she sees me approaching, her lips twitch upward and she starts to slow down. Every eye in the hallway rolls our way, and the idle chitchat grinds to a halt.

A cluster of smooth one-liners swirls inside of my head, but by the time I stop in front of her, they all disappear in a puff of smoke and I'm left standing there in front of her with a deer-in-the-headlights look that's going to do heavy damage to the smooth-swagger act that I've worked so hard to perfect. In the end, Anjenai has to break my hypnotic spell by being the first one to speak.

“Good morning,” she says with dimples winking.

“Morning.” I rake my gaze over her one more time. “You look…stunning.” Instantly, she lights up like a Christmas tree.

“Thanks.” Her hand drifts up to her curtain of straight hair. “I figured it was time for a change.”

“As long as you like it, then I love it,” I tell her—which is true. I like the change, but I was just as smitten by her when she was the cute geek slash athlete. “Sooo are we still on for tonight?” I ask.

“I'm still down,” she says. “Are you sure that you still want to pick me up? I don't have a problem with—”

“I'm picking you up,” I tell her. “This is a real official date, and we're going to do things the right way.”

Anjenai's cheeks darken to a deep burgundy as her smile brightens.

“Are you blushing?”

“A little bit.”

Now her entire face has changed color. It's cute and adorable. When I remember that everyone is still watching us, I lean forward and whisper, “So can a brother walk you to your locker?”

“Sure. I don't mind.”

Before she starts to walk, I reach over and grab her bag. “Let me carry this for you.” Still smiling, she releases the bag and we fall into step side by side, leaving a trail of open mouths in our wake—including Romeo Blackwell's and Phoenix Wilder's.

Phoenix—Worth Fighting For

He
still has the hots for that bitch!
I can't believe this. How on earth is this
one
project hood rat able to give me so much grief? What? People are supposed to be impressed because she slapped a hot iron on her hair and put on some makeup?
Puh-lease.
A hood rat is a hood rat is a hood rat. That heifer ain't fooling nobody. I cross my arms and cut my gaze back over to Romeo, waiting for him to put his eyes back into his head and pick his damn mouth off the floor. By the time he does, I have a serious attitude.

“What?” he asks, trying to look all innocent.

“You know what,” I hiss. “Don't play me sideways.”

“C'mon now. Don't start.”

“If you'd stop drooling after that girl, then we wouldn't have a problem, would we?”

He actually has the nerve to roll his eyes. He's lucky I don't try to gouge them out.

“Let's just drop it.” He starts toward our homeroom, but I
don't follow him. When he notices this, he huffs out a long breath and rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. “What now?”

“How come you don't ever offer to carry my bags?”

“Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.” I slap a hand onto my hip and work my neck. “Hell, I'm carrying your child, you'd at least think you could handle one measly little bag.” Wow. I can't believe I just pushed that lie right out of my mouth with a straight face. Regardless, it gets the desired effect because homeboy waltzes back over to me and takes my bag from me. “Thank you,” I say bitingly. “Now, was that so hard?” I roll my eyes and march on to class.

When the homeroom bell rings, we're sitting in the back of the classroom in our usual seats with steam still rising off of my head. Mainly because I can't stop replaying that little scene between Anjenai and Kwan. Not because the bitch has moved on—that part is cool as hell with me—but just because of the reaction of this idiot sitting next to me. How you gonna just disrespect me like that in the hallway? Did he see that once Anjenai and Kwan exited stage left, every eye then rolled to us? Did he seriously think that no one else saw that pathetic little face of his stretching like someone just kicked his puppy? This situation is a real gut check for me. If I tell Romeo the truth about losing the baby, he'll drop-kick my ass to the curb so quick that it will make my head spin. Where would that leave me then?

Sobbing my eyes out in the girls' bathroom.

I slam my eyes shut just thinking about my emotional breakdown a few days back. Just thinking about it now still fills me with shock and amazement. I don't even remember
what set that off. I was fine one minute and the next a flood of tears was pouring down my face. Thank God Nicole came when she did.
She…Nicole and Anjenai are friends.
That needling thought keeps poking at me. What if…?

Nah. Nicole wouldn't do that. She promised.

But why would she keep her promise to me? I've been nothing but cruel to her since the day Daddy finally admitted that he even had another child out of wedlock. A child just a year younger than me. Since then I've done nothing but tease her and mistreat her.

Maybe I should go and remind her that blood is thicker than water and I still expect her to keep her word.
I mull that over for a minute while Raven and Bianca waltz through the classroom door. I only glance at them for a hot minute and then cut my gaze away. But then I hear a faint whimper and a couple of sniffs and I take another look at my girls. Bianca appears to be upset.

“Anjenai? How could he like that bitch?” she hisses.

Ha!
Now the trick knows how
I
feel. Our gazes connect, and before I can roll my eyes in the opposite direction, she shares a look with me that tells how much they miss me.
I knew it. Those bitches are nothing without me.

Roll call is a brief, uneventful affair, and the moment the last name is marked present, everyone pops out of their chairs and starts visiting friends at other desks including Romeo, who heads over to Shadiq. I need to ease up on him, before we end up fighting and I still lose him.

“Hey, girl,” Bianca says to me as she and Raven move to cluster around my desk. “How have you been doing?”

This is a make-or-break moment. I could give these girls
a quick flip of my hair and the back of my head, but the truth of the matter is I miss these bitches' friendship about as much as they've missed mine.

“I've been hanging in there,” I tell them, keeping my face neutral.

Raven eases down in the empty chair in front of my desk. “Are you going to Club Zero tonight? Shadiq said that he was performing.”

“Shadiq? I thought y'all were swooning over that new kid? What's his name again?”

A pained look ripples across Bianca's face. “Puh-lease. Ain't nobody studin' his weak-rhyming ass,” she says unconvincingly. “I'm sure that Shadiq is going to check that ass on the mike tonight.”

Raven bobs her head. “Yeah. He's gonna let him know how we do thangs in the dirty-dirty. You know?”

I'm not finished twisting this knife in Bianca's gut just yet. “I don't know. Word around school is that it's going to be a serious battle. Kwan has skills. Plus, he's probably going to be trying to impress some girl he's taking to the joint.”

Bianca's pale face drains of what little color she had going. “Anjenai,” she spits. “I swear I can't stand that bitch. What the hell do these boys see in that girl?” Her angry glare swings from Raven to me. “Do y'all get this shit, or am I just stuck on stupid?”

“I get it,” Raven says, winning our attention. “C'mon. Everybody knows hood girls are easy. The boys wanna roll with these project chicks that be dropping it like it hot and then dropping two, three children before they—
if
they graduate from high school.” As soon as she tosses that crap
out of her mouths, she slaps a hand over her mouth and swings her gaze back to me.

Bianca tries to quickly repair the damage. “She didn't mean—”

“I'm hardly in the same situation,” I inform them, skating the truth. “Romeo and I have been an item for a long time. He didn't meet me one day and screw me the next. We've been planning to be together for a long time. The baby just means that we're going to marry before college and not after. No big deal.” I shrug my shoulders. Of course, I need to get him to impregnate me again before I get caught with an empty belly.

“You're so lucky,” Bianca says. “I think that it's great that you two have gotten back together.”

Raven adds, “Then again, you guys always do.”

“Yep. I got my man, so I ain't scared of those nasty project bitches.” The girls laugh at my lie while I cut another gaze at Romeo, who still looks miserable. I know without a doubt that he's thinking about Anjenai, and at this moment in time there's nothing that I can do about it.

Kierra—I Will Survive

Anjenai's
makeover has turned out to be a huge success. Every hallway I walk down, everyone is talking about her. Of course, if they all knew what the BFFs know, right now they would be talking about Phoenix's trifling and lying ass. Not pregnant? At least, not anymore—and she hasn't been for a minute now. Clearly, she's keeping the lie going because she needs to keep her claws buried in Romeo. That's some foul shit. Especially since most people can take one look at Romeo and know that he's still got it bad for Anjenai.

Anjenai took the news with openmouthed astonishment, but to my surprise she wasn't gung ho about dropping a dime on Phoenix's scheme like I was—hell, neither was Nicole, and I straight up don't understand that. I know if the shoe was on the other foot, Phoenix wouldn't hesitate to stab her in the back. I wish Tyler was here. I know she would side with me on this. Maybe I'll start writing her and letting her know the 411 about all the drama that's
floating around here—including my own. McKenya and I still haven't seen hide nor tail of Deborah. Pretty soon, I'm going to have to start doing something that's going to pull money into the house.

From the corner of my eye, I spot Drake huddled up with some dudes, and I wonder if he has a couple more of those caffeine pills. I stroll over to him with a big smile. He looks up just as I'm approaching and tosses me a smile of his own.

“Hey, what's up?” He turns away from some kid, and for a brief moment, I see him stuff a fat knot of bills into his pants pocket. My eyes bulge out on the spot.

“Damn, boy. Is that how you roll?”

He flashes a smile and thrusts out his chest. “Hey, don't let the small size fool you. I'm a first-class businessman. Money moves everything around me just like it does for the rest of the world. You know what I mean?”

I have no idea what he's talking about. “Yeah, man. Cool. Cool.”

“So holler at me. What can Brown do for you?”

I laugh at the play off his last name as we turn and start heading toward my locker. “Well, I guess I was wondering if you had any more of those pills you gave me last time. I pulled an all-nighter with some friends, and I know that I'm going to crash and burn before I reach Mr. Griffin's class.”

“Ah. I told you those babies would help, didn't I?”

“That they did,” I say, grinning at him.

He bobs his head. “I also said that the first package was free. The second one is going to cost you ten.”

I blink at him. “Ten dollars for caffeine pills? You tripping.” Drake levels a look on me that suddenly brings a lot of stuff into focus. “Those weren't caffeine pills, were they?”

“Not exactly,” he says with a halfhearted shrug. “But they were a hell of a pick-me-up, weren't they?”

“You're a drug dealer?”

“Shhh!” He grabs me by the arm and pulls me to the side. “Damn, girl. Why don't you just go ask Ms. Callaway to let you blast it over the intercom?”

I think I'm too stunned to respond. Finally he kicks up another grin at me.

“Looky here. I like you—so this is what I'm going to do.” He takes another slick look around and then reaches into his pocket. “I'm going to hook you up with another package.”

I shake my head and step away. My mind is reeling. Never in a million years would I have thought that Drake, this quiet, choir-boy-looking kid, was a drug dealer.

“What? Now there's a problem?” he asks, starting to look nervous. “You're not thinking about messing up my hustle, are you?”

I take another step back, but then my eyes fall to the fat knot pressing against the side of his pant leg.
Money.
Drake's eyes follow my gaze. “What? You're thinking about bribing me?”

I shake my head. “No. I'm thinking about you giving me a job.”